In solid state storage systems, one or more thresholds are used to read the solid state storage. The selection of these thresholds is important because it affects the number of bit errors contained in the read-back bit sequence. Naturally, it would be desirable to use the optimal threshold (i.e., the threshold which returns the fewest bit errors). Although techniques for estimating an optimal threshold already exist, under certain conditions these techniques may be unable to converge on the actual optimal threshold (e.g., the system gets “stuck” and/or converges on an estimate that is a poor estimate). New optimal threshold estimation techniques which avoid such problems would be desirable.